John McCain and the limits of American military power

The impulse to right moral wrongs through the use of military force may be desirable — even laudable — but if we do so by ignoring the limits of military power in a given situation, we are likely to make things worse for those we aim to help. There is little doubt that Senator McCain sincerely believed in the ideals on whose behalf he too frequently wished to wield U.S. military power. Critics of U.S. foreign policy might suggest that jettisoning those ideals would make the use of American military force abroad less likely. Some may even suggest that doing so would insulate the United States from charges that it has failed to live up to its professed values, or that it never held such values in the first place.

Yet as my colleague Jacob Levy has written, nihilism is worse than hypocrisy, because the latter at least suggests ideals to which a nation aspires. America’s professed ideals are a big part of what has made it an attractive partner for so many foreign powers in the postwar era. Moreover, if the Trump administration is any indication, there is little reason to suggest that a foreign policy that tosses aside American values will be any less violent or reckless.